(Essays on Culture in the New Millennium)
By Eduardo Espina
English translation by Travis Sorenson
Published by ARTE Pulbico Press
Espina has demonstrated a witty and humorous take on pondering modern-day paradoxes within our society – most notably the event when the German Pop group Milli Vanilli won a Grammy for songs that weren’t truly sung by them. The author has a way of getting people to think about things or look at situations with a different lens. Like for instance, the word ‘Hah.’ These everyday words are things we have heard before and we believe we understand their meaning, but then he takes us on a different spin and depth. It’s something that most people wouldn’t ordinary think about or go into too much depth, but the author does. These essays give you an insight into how he thinks.
In ‘The Day After the Flag.’ In this example, Espina allows you to think or picture something more than just a flag. The post scripts Espina uses are quite informative. Additional, he uses the phrase ‘The Xerox Syndrome.’ In this instance he is referring to plagiarism and devotes a section to this topic. In this chapter he indicates that plagiarism is a writer’s worst nightmare. He also equates or finds it is a similar characteristic of our current social media tools such as Yahoo, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter etc. The look into his views can be amusing. Additionally, he takes us on a tour of supermarkets and we get to enter into his world regarding this experience as well. It’s definitely a different spin on everyday life surroundings.
Overall I would consider the writing to lean towards the abstract, which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your taste. For me, it was a little more abstract than what I normally read; however, it was a fun read.
Book was provided by Publisher/Author and review completed by Lucia Salinas
